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Scott Carey commented on AVRO-839:
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I'm not convinced we need to do this. But here is an idea: we could add the methods back
as deprecated, with a default implementation and some javadoc so that other folks won't be
confused by the change and code with or without an override on these will still work. Then
in 1.7.x we can drop it and there will be a better paper trail for others to follow on where
the new non-deprecated versions are.
This way, projects like Pig could potentially upgrade to 1.6.next and compile without change.
Alternatively, we do a better job documenting how to upgrade code to use 1.6.x. This means
that code compiled against 1.5.x will fail with 1.6.x if it uses these methods or extends
the class however.
Any other opinions on what to do? Is the documentation in this ticket enough? Should we
add these back in? Any other ideas?
> Implement builder pattern in generated record classes that sets default values when omitted
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Key: AVRO-839
> URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/AVRO-839
> Project: Avro
> Issue Type: Improvement
> Components: java
> Reporter: James Baldassari
> Assignee: James Baldassari
> Fix For: 1.6.0
>
> Attachments: AVRO-839-v2.patch, AVRO-839-v3.patch, AVRO-839-v4.patch, AVRO-839-v4.patch,
AVRO-839-v5.patch, AVRO-839.patch, AVRO-839.patch, AVRO-839.patch
>
>
> This is an idea for an improvement to the SpecificCompiler-generated record classes.
There are two main issues to address:
> # Default values specified in schemas are only used at read time, not when writing/serializing
records. For example, a NullPointerException is thrown when attempting to write a record
that has an uninitialized array or string type. I'm sure this was done for good reasons,
like giving users maximum control and preventing unnecessary garbage collection, but I think
it's also somewhat confusing and unintuitive for new users (myself included).
> # Users have to create their own factory classes/methods for every record type, both
to ensure that all non-primitive members are initialized and to facilitate the construction
and initialization of record instances (i.e. constructing and setting values in a single statement).
> These issues have been discussed previously here:
> * [http://search-hadoop.com/m/iDVTn1JVeSR1]
> * AVRO-726
> * AVRO-770
> * [http://search-hadoop.com/m/JuY1V16pwxh1]
> I'd like to propose a solution that is used by at least one other messaging framework.
For each generated record class there will be a public static inner class called Builder.
The Builder inner class has the same fields as the record class, as well as accessors and
mutators for each of these fields. Whenever a mutator method is called, the Builder sets
a boolean flag indicating that the field has been set. All mutators return a reference to
'this', so it's possible to chain a series of setter invocations, which makes it really easy
to construct records in a single statement. The Builder also has a build() method which constructs
a record instance using the values that were set in the Builder. When the build() method
is invoked, if there are any fields that have not been set but have default values as defined
in the schema, the Builder will set the values of these fields using their defaults.
> One nice thing about implementing the builder pattern in a static inner Builder class
rather than in the record itself is that this enhancement will be completely backwards-compatible
with existing code. The record class itself would not change, and the public fields would
still be there, so existing code would still work. Users would have the option to use the
Builder or continue constructing records manually. Eventually the public fields could be
phased out, and the record would be made immutable. All changes would have to be done through
the Builder.
> Here is an example of what this might look like:
> {code}
> // Person.newBuilder() returns a new Person.Builder instance
> // All Person.Builder setters return 'this' allowing us to chain set calls together for
convenience
> // Person.Builder.build() returns a Person instance after setting any uninitialized values
that have defaults
> Person me = Person.newBuilder().setName("James").setCountry("US").setState("MA").build();
> // We still have direct access to Person's members, so the records are backwards-compatible
> me.state = "CA";
> // Person has accessor methods now so that the public fields can be phased out later
> System.out.println(me.getState());
> // No NPE here because the array<Person> field that stores this person's friends
has been automatically
> // initialized by the Builder to a new java.util.ArrayList<Person> due to a @java_class
annotation in the IDL
> System.out.println(me.getFriends().size());
> {code}
> What do people think about this approach? Any other ideas?
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